Making Government Manageable: Executive Organization and Management in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Thomas H. Stanton and Benjamin Ginsberg

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press (May 21, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0801878322
ISBN-13: 978-0801878329

What are the basic concepts of executive organization and management? How does executive organization affect management? How can executive organization and management be improved? In Making Government Manageable, Thomas H. Stanton and Benjamin Ginsberg bring together a distinguished group of authorities from both the academic and political worlds to explore problems relating to the organization and management of government.

The authors begin with a brief overview of the development of executive organization and management to the present day. They then offer examples of problems in federal department organization and management. They also raise the question of the effectiveness of third-party government—cases in which the private sector under contract with the government performs services for which the government is responsible and, in the process, makes policy for which the government becomes responsible. The authors conclude with a discussion of cases in which agencies have enjoyed some measure of success through reforming and reorganizing their internal structures and processes.

The book contains a foreword, a preface, an introduction, and ten chapters:

• Foreword, by Harold Seidman
• Preface
• Introduction: Executive Organization and Management after September 11, by Thomas H. Stanton
• Chapter One: Citizens into Customers: How America Downsized Citizenship and Privatized Its Public, by Matthew Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg
• Chapter Two: Governance Principles: The Neglected Basis of Federal Management, by Ronald C. Moe
• Chapter Three: Inherently Governmental Functions: The Legacy of Twentieth-Century Reform, by Dan Guttman
• Chapter Four: The Cabinet Officer as Juggler: The Accountability World of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, by Beryl Radin
• Chapter Five: The Future of the Postal Service, by Murray Comarow
• Chapter Six: Professionalism as Third-Party Governance: The Function and Dysfunction of Medicare, by Sallyanne Payton
• Chapter Seven: Organization and Management of Federal Departments, by Alan L. Dean
• Chapter Eight: Modernizing Federal Field Operations, by Dwight Ink and Alan L. Dean
• Chapter Nine: Technocracy:  Who Will Bell the Cat?, by Barbara Wamsley
• Chapter Ten: Program Design and the Quest for Smaller and More Efficient Government, by Thomas H. Stanton